As to whether they themselves are permitted to come back, or whether they are able to use other entities to carry out that purpose, I am still in doubt." As he spoke he saw a curious change come over Lionel Varick's face.

The rather set smile with which he had been listening to the discussion gave way to an odd expression of acute unease.

But at this particular moment it was not Varick with whom Sir Lyon was concerned, but with the frank, eager, pleasant-faced, young doctor, in whose estimation, as he realized, he was falling further and further down with every word he uttered.
"To tell you the honest truth," he went on, "even in the days when I did little else than attend seances and have sittings with noted mediums, not only in this country but also on the Continent, I could never quite make up my mind whether the spirit with whom I was in communication was really the being he or she purported to be! There was a time," he spoke with some emotion, "when I would have given anything--certainly most willingly twenty years of my life--to be so absolutely convinced.

But there it is," he sighed, and was himself surprised at the feeling of depression which came over him.

"Even the most earnest investigation of the kind resolves itself always, after a while, into a kind of will-o'-the-wisp that leads no-whither." "Not always," exclaimed Panton sharply.